


Late Night Hunting

by SkartoArgento



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Office fights, Resolved Sexual Tension, grumpy hackers and frustrated ex-cops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkartoArgento/pseuds/SkartoArgento
Summary: A late night in Sarif Industries, and Pritchard finds himself being interrupted.





	

_The amended protocol hid itself behind a re-routed proxy. Source skilled, but not overly so, just enough to make him jog through the system when he usually walked. Code unsteady, unstable, amateur work, hacker self-taught or new to the game._

_Check for diversions; nothing boring through the firewall or climbing his defences. Just this little script cowering away. A test, maybe, a finger ghosting to find any weak points._

“ _That was your first mistake,” he told the bars of code on the screen. “I don't have any weak points.”_

_The proxy first – crushed and tossed aside._

_The protocol, still shielded behind a thin wall of its own, weakened. He hunted like a dog after a rabbit. When the last brick came down, he went for the throat._

_A creak of door handle. Outside. In the real world._

_He blinked_

and the real world hit Frank, hard, like waking up from deep sleep with a bucket of water to the face.

Quiet outside the tech lab, quieter than when he'd started chasing the rogue protocol. Was it really that late? Even later, according to the clock. Two empty coffee cups he didn't remember drinking. Who had brought those to him, Malik? Athene?

“Are you done yet?”

More blinking. Overcompensation for hours spent staring at the screen. He squinted his eyes shut against the sting. Jensen. Why here and why _now_?

A headache built behind his eyes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then laced his fingers together. Irritation sprouted like a stubborn weed. “If by 'done' you mean 'finished making sure the safety of this company isn't compromised' then _yes_ , Jensen, I am _done_.”

“Nice to know you're keeping on top of things, Francis.” Jensen took one step inside, shut the door. Eyes hidden behind lenses. “Thought you might be playing one of your little video games. You seemed pretty focused.”

“Well, someone around here has to take their job seriously.”

“And that's... you.”

The implication sent the sprout into a full growth-spurt. Words wrestled themselves out from behind his teeth. “What. Do you. Want?”

“Thought we could have a little chat. Just you and me.” An augmented hand nudged the Newton's cradle on the barrier between his desk and the rest of the room, flicked through a stack of papers. Too close. Too close, and too much touching of _his_ things.

“I'm not in the mood for conversation.”

“This won't take long.” Newton's cradle stopped with a finger. Eyebrows set in a frown. “I don't like that you have access to my personal computer. Or my personal files. I can't stop you from hacking in, but I want your word that you won't.”

He folded his arms. “No. Was that all?”

A pause. Eyebrows raised a fraction. Apparently 'no' was not a word Jensen heard often. “What do you mean?”

“Would you like me to download you a dictionary? _No_ . The opposite of _yes_ . _No_ , I will not promise not to gain access to your home computer. _No_ , I will not relinquish any passwords I have or will have. And _no_ , I do not take kindly to threats.”

“I haven't threatened you –”

“ – _yet_.”

Silence, ice-cold and fathoms deep, spread through the room. The end metal ball of his Newton's cradle, caught between two augmented fingers, dented.

“What do you have to hide, Jensen?” The power imbalance grated, so he stood. No longer in such a weak position. “Is it from Sarif, or is it from me?”

“I have _nothing_ to hide, Pritchard. Since when is wanting privacy some admission of guilt?”

“There must be something, _Jensen_ , or you wouldn't have... what, waited for everyone to leave before you came in here? Because you didn't want anyone to see you making a such a big deal out of _nothing_?”

The sprout grew a little taller. He liked the taste of it between his back teeth.

Hand curled into fists. Jensen's face twisted, a hint of canine tooth. “I thought we could talk like two... rational human beings. But you're not rational at all, are you? You just like pissing me off.”

“I won't let a security leak happen because you want to hide whatever strange pornography you no doubt have on your computer. I don't care.” Besides, after what he'd discovered downloaded on some of the pilots' personal computers, not much fazed him. “But for the record? Yes. I do like pissing you off, Jensen. I find it quite therapeutic.”

He pushed away from the desk, shrugged past Jensen and threw open the door. Leaned against the glass wall. Folded his arms for good measure. “You have my answer, now you can leave.”

A snap of black coat. A snarl. Jensen moved towards him, jaw set and nostrils flared. How prehistoric. “You have no right to snoop in my computer –”

Sprout bloomed to a fully-grown plant in one hot instant. “I have _every_ right! Just because you don't seem to read a single damn clause in your contract doesn't make this my problem! No wonder Sarif thought he could do that to you – he could have replaced your _brain_ and I don't think we would have noticed –”

Blur of black, an augmented hand. He didn't move.

Spider-web silver cracks threaded through the glass next to his head. Eye-lenses down. Green and yellow burned, poisonous. The hand stayed there, and the warmth from Jensen's arm seared his cheek.

“Is this therapeutic enough for you, Pritchard?” Breathless, as though Jensen had run through the whole of Detroit to stand in front of him. “Is it?”

Jensen's other hand – on the wall next to his hip. Braced him without touching.

“I think we can do a little better.” He let an indulgent smile touch his lips. “Do you think I'm afraid of you, Jensen? Of your augmentations and your utterly caveman attitude?”

“I think you should be.”

“Now, _that's_ a threat.”

“You don't know what a threat is, _Francis_.” Jensen's whisper slid into his ear. Intimate. “And I think you piss me off because you're insecure. Scared of Sarif trusting someone other than you. Worried you'll get kicked out onto the street because any script kiddie can do what you do. Only reason you're not afraid of me is because you hide behind Sarif if things go wrong. Pretty pathetic.”

The _lies_ . Hackles rose, heat in his chest and on his tongue. “You don't know a _damn thing_ about–”

Lips against his, insistent, smothering words like water over flames.

One hand buried in his hair, the other at the small of his back.

It didn't take very long for him to react. No time to examine or analyse emotions – they all merged into one fierce background _want._ His hands trembled, clenched into Jensen's shoulders, held on tight. The kiss punished; a rough glide of tongue instead of a blow, a press of teeth instead of admonishment.

He punished back, nipped, knotted hair in one fist and stole control. Hips pinned him to the wall, but he could still be in charge.

All right, maybe, as therapies went, this was far more effective than annoying Jensen.

Fingers cupped his cheek. It took a few moments for him to realise they'd gone from savage to tender. Jensen's aftershave lingered, something dark but pleasant. He relaxed, muscle by muscle, allowed Jensen the last move – a slow swipe of his mouth with that now-familiar tongue.

A smile against his jaw. “Thought that might shut you up.”

His lips didn't want to form any more words. What could he even begin to say?

“Uh.”

Well. Thank you, brain, that was... almost a sentence.

“Did I break you? Earth to Pritchard...” A shake of his shoulders. “Come on, I don't want Sarif to turn up tomorrow and find you paralysed.”

“I'm... all right.” No lie there. More than all right. Vindicated somehow.

Knuckles over his cheek this time, rubbing, like trying to comfort a pet. Jensen's lips again, at his jaw, then his throat. If they moved lower, he had no objections

“You never said thanks.” The words vibrated into his neck. He forced his eyes open.

“What for?”

“The coffee.” Tongue tasted his pulse, stroked up to under his ear. Bristles scraped him into a hazy trance. “Brought you two earlier and you didn't even look at me. You don't appreciate anything.”

Words. Still hard. “Thank you... for the coffee, Jensen. Adam.”

“The computer conversation isn't over. Just so you know.”

At that moment he would have taken a baseball bat to the damn machine if it meant Jensen kept doing that to his throat. “Okay.”

He was, of course, absolutely still in the right. Another fight to look forward to.

 


End file.
